HTC Uses Newly Acquired HP Patents to Countersue Apple

HTC responded to a lawsuit by Apple by countersuing and adding in a couple of new patents of its own. HTC had been looking for patents to use in the ongoing “patent wars” when it acquired these from HP last December.

HTC uses HP patents in legal fight with Apple

HTC’s legal fight with Apple began after Motorola first sued Apple in 2010 and later that suit was consolidated with another. Then Apple countersued not only Motorola, but also HTC. HTC requested the case be moved out of the Miami jurisdiction, but that hasn’t happened yet. So in response, HTC countersued and denied Apple’s allegations, plus threw in a couple of their own complaints for good measure.

The patents in question, according toFOSS Patents, are one for the “installation of network services in an embedded network server” and a “method and system for central management of a computer network.” The first would affect both Macs and iOS devices, the second would affect Apple Remote Desktop and Apple Profile Manager.

HTC had recently lost a case at the ITC, where five patents it had acquired from Google were found to be more of a loan than a sale. The terms of sale of the patents acquired from HP are likely to be scrutinized to see if similar arrangements were made there.